HoUinger Corp. 
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SUGGESTIONS 
FOEb BEAUTIFYING 

HOMEVHIAGEANDKOADWAf 




By WARRILN H. MANNING. 

Secretary of the American ParR and Outdoor Art Association. 



WITH THE, COMPLIMENTS OF 
THE YOUTH'S COMPANION. 




The Perception of the 
Beautiful. 

The following is an extract from a paper written in 1839 for a State 
Public School Convention in Connecticut by Mrs. Lydia H. Sigoarney, the 
well-known poetess. The title of her paper was, " The Perception of 
the 'Beautiful." 

I hope the time is coming when every isolated village school- 
house shall be a temple on whose exterior the occupant may study 
the principles of S3^mmetry and of grace. Why need the structures 
where the young are initiated into those virtues which make life 
beautiful be divorced from taste or devoid of comfort ? Why should 
they not be erected in fine, airy situations, overshadowed with 
trees and embellished with shrubbery? Why should not the velvet 
turf attached to them be bordered with hedges, divided by gravel 
walks, tufted with flowers? 

Why should not the thick mantling vine decorate the porch, or 
the woodbine and convolvulus look in at the window, touching the 
heart of the young learner with a thought of Him whose breath 
perfumes them and whose pencil paints? Why should not the 
interior of our schoolhouses aim at somewhat of the taste and 
elegance of a parlor? Might not the vase of flowers enrich the 
mantelpiece, and the walls displa}', not only well-executed maps, 
but historical engravings or pictures, and the book-shelves be 
crowned with the bust of moralist or sage, orator, or the Father of 
his Country? 

Is it alleged that the expense thus incurred would be thrown 
away, the beautiful objects defaced and the fair scenery desecrated ? 
This is not a necessary result. I have been informed by teachers 
who had made the greatest advances toward the appropriate and 
elegant accommodation of their pupils that it was not so. They 
have said that it was easier to enforce habits of neatness and order 
among objects whose taste and value made them worthy of care 
than amid that parsimony of apparatus whose very pitiful mean- 
ness operates as a temptation to waste and to destroy. 

Let the communities, now so anxious to raise the standard of 
education, venture the experiment of a more liberal adornment of 
the dwellings devoted to it. 

Let them put more faith in that respect for the beautiful which 
really exists in the young heart, and requires onl)' to be called 
forth and nurtured to become an ally of virtue and a handmaid to 
religion. Knowledge has a more imposing effect upon the young 
mind when it stands, like the apostle with the gifts of healing, at 
the beautiful gate of the temple. Memory looks back to it more 
joyously from the distant or desolated tracks of life for the bright 
scenery of its early path. 



After a lapse of sixty-three years, " The Perception of the Beautiful," 
as set forth by Mrs. Sigourney, is being realized through a national 
movement for the beautifying of public schoolhouses and grounds. 



J •-: y n W A >>< n h 
r.W Putnam 

30S'0A 



SUGGESTIONS. 



Beautiful surroundings increase values and refine. Ugliness and filth 
cheapen and degrade. 

Abate disagreeable sights, smells and sounds as public nuisances. 

Rubbish exposed to the public gaze is a public nuisance. Dirty streets 
and open lots show untidy towns ; dirty back yards, untidy householders, 
and dirty dark corners, untidy housewives. Provide a suitable enclosure 
for rubbish, and keep it in its place. 

An abuse of public advertising is a public nuisance. The use of an 
offensive stench or blare of noise to force a merchant's goods on public 
notice would be a public nuisance. So, too, is the use of glaring posters 
on walls, on fences, and in an attractive landscape. Do not allow your 
property to be thus disfigured, even by a little sign. 

Shabby, useless, ugly buildings and fences are public nuisances. If 
they cannot be removed or improved, then cover with paint, colored 
whitewash, vines, or screen with rapid-growing shrubs or trees. 

Uninviting, uninteresting and untidy school grounds give evil impres- 
sions to children that later will be reflected in their home and business 
surroundings. 

The character of a community is indicated by its treatment of public 
grounds. 

Make home grounds as inviting and convenient to live in as home 
rooms. 

First make survey and simple plan of grounds with such clearly 
defined compartments as lawn and garden, kitchen, laundry and stable 
yards with only walks that are required, and upon which plantations are 
indicated. 

Use hardy shrubs, vines, trees and flowering plants against bare walls 
to hide bad views, to frame in turf areas, and at the base of buildings to 
merge hard angles into flowing lines of landscape. 

Use tender plants and annuals in flower-garden, flower-boxes, or beds 
at edge, not in center, of lawn. 

Use few large trees in small places. 

Consider ultimate, not present, size of all plants in planning. 

Use a few reliable varieties in large quantities at first, adding variety 
later. 

The common native plants about you are reliable and often quite as 
beautiful as the best exotics. Exotics in common cultivation for years 
are reliable. 

You can buy exotics and garden varieties and some natives from local 
dealers. You can collect most natives successfully if large masses of 
earth are retained on roots at transplanting. 

The common plants on pages ii and 12 are suggested as types for 
various conditions in different parts of the country. 



[1] 



1. If there are streets in your town as bare and unattractive 
as this 




2. They need only towering trunks and graceful stems of 
trees in winter, 




3. And masses of tree foliage in summer to make them attract- 
ive by unifying discordant architectural features. Think of the 
pleasure and comfort that every citizen will gain from the shade 
and the beauty of the individual trees ! 



■■, -*.a!?r, !=.-i^ '-:■' ^.•- -3111/* 





E2] 



4. Every householder and 
every tenant can add to his own 
pleasure and to the beauty of 
his town by making his home 
surroundings attractive. This 
is a neat and orderly home, 
but neatness and good order 
do not alone make beauty. 



5. The rigid building lines and the hard angle between 
house and ground should be softened by masses of foliage 
about the base of the building, 





6. Or the building clotlied witii a drapery oi hard)- vines. 




[3] 



7. An abundance of flowering 8. And flowers always in 

vines on piazza posts window or piazza boxes. 





9. A cheap and unattractive iron bridge is poor econom}^ 




10. When it is possible to secure stone for inc i nstruction 
of a bridge like this that has lasted a hundred years. 




[4] 



11 and 12. With flowers and vines the humblest cabin may 
be made a place of beauty by masses of foliage about the base 
of the building-. 








13. Even the back yard of the crowded city home may be 
made a bower of beauty from the use of shrubs, flowers and 
vines. 



yj^!CTiiBflfl..jJH 



[5] 



14. How can you expect men and women to appreciate and 
work for more beautiful towns and homes, when so many of 
childhood's days are passed amid such plain and bare surround- 
ings ? 




15 and 16. A drapery of vines upon the school buildings 
adds beauty to the severest bare walls as well as to the most 
graceful work of the architect. 





[61 



17. First impressions of a town are lasting ones, and such 
impressions are fixed by unattractive conditions about the 
railroad-station. An attractive station, with flowers and vines, 
will give pleasure to every resident, every visitor and every 
traveller who passes by. 




18. Even the surroundings of mills and factories may be 
made attractive by planting trees and shrubs in waste places, 
or encouraging the growth of native trees that will spring up 
spontaneousl3^ 




19. How much of the beauty of this scene is dependent upon 
the spontaneous growth of trees about a plain and ill-propor- 
tioned building ! 




[7] 



20. Do not forget the common roadside growth, and the 
beauty that lies therein. If it is disfigured by such unauthor- 
ized signs as are represented here, make it your mission to 
destroy them, for an offense to the sight in such a place is as 
much of a public nuisance as an offense to the ear or nose. 




Never sweep away a bit of wild growth in your home, school 
or public grounds without studying it for at least a year, in 
order that you may learn to appreciate its beauty at all seasons. 
An appreciation of the beauty of common things leads to the 
highest in art. 



[8] 



21. Kven such unattractive city back-yard conditions can 
be transformed by the flower-gardens of No. 13, where condi- 
tions were no better, or window-boxes like No. 8. 




22. And by the use of vines on poles or latticework. 



Considerably more than half of the pupils in our 
public schools receive their instruction in rural schools. 
A large proportion of those who attend these schools 
never enter a high school or college. In fact, many 
fail to complete even the common school course. If 
the stability of a free government depends upon the 
education of the people, it is of the greatest importance 
that our rural schools — the schools wherein most of 
our future voters and legislators are being trained — 
should attain the highest possible state of efficiency. 
— School Education. 



[9] 



23. Such city conditions, however, emphasize the need of 
public parks and playgrounds, where dwellers in cities may go 
frequently to find relief from the inevitable noise and repulsive- 
ness of city life and conditions as they go daily to the home to 
seek relief from the cares of business. 




The public school is the place to which we should 
turn chief attention in our effort to promote a more 
beautiful public life in America. 



[10] 



Trees, Shrubs and Vines. 

In very cold or arid sections care must be used in selecting 
from this list, and in all sections it is well to determine if any 
plant selected is already growing successfully in gardens or 
fields. 

I/arge Deciduous Trees. 
Red Oak, all sections. 
American Elm, all sections. 
Cottonwood, all sections. 
Water Oak, Southern States. 

I/arge lEvergreen Trees. 

Magnolia Grandiflora, Pacific and Southern States. 

Live Oak, Pacific and Southern States. 

Camphor Tree, Pacific and Southern States. 

Rubber Tree, Pacific States. 

White Pine, Central, Northern and Western States, 

Monterey Cypress, Pacific and vSouthern States. 

Monterey Pine, Pacific and Southern States. 

Small Deciduous Trees. Small Evergreen Trees. 

Mulberry, all sections. Mock Orange, Southern States. 

Red Bud, all sections. Red Cedar, all sections. 
Flowering Dogwood, all sections. 

I^arge Deciduous Shrubs. 

Crape Myrtle, Southern and Pacific States. 

Figs, Southern and Pacific States. 

Mock Orange Syringa, all sections. 

Armoor Privet, all sections. 

California Privet, all sections. 

Lilacs, all sections. 

Native Viburnum, Cornels and Elders of all sections. 

Bridal Wreath Spir^a, all sections. 

I/arge Evergreen Shrubs. 

Tree Box, all sections. 

Rhododendron, all sections except limestone soils. 

Strawberry Guava, Pacific States. 

Chinese Hibiscus, Southern and Pacific States. 

LauresTinus, Southern and Pacific States. 

Small and Medium Evergreen Shrubs. 

Mahonia, all sections. 

Daphne Indica, Southern and Pacific States. 
Gardenia, Southern and Pacific States. 
Cherokee Rose, Southern and Pacific States. 



[11] 



L of C. 



Small and Medium Deciduous Shrubs. 

Japan Quince, all sections. 
GoivDEN BELI., all sections. 
Dwarf Deutzia, all sections. 
Hardy Hydrangea, all sections. 
Service Berry, all sections. 
Spir^as, all sections. 
Thumberg's Barberry, all sections. 

High-Growing Deciduous Climbers. 

Grape, all sections. 

Bitter Sweet (Celastrus), all sections. 
Virginia Creeper, all sections. 
Japanese Ivy, all sections. 
Clematis Paniculata, all sections. 
Banksian Rose, all sections. 
Crimson Rambler Rose, all sections. 

High-Growing ISvergreen Climbers. 

Ivy, Southern, Eastern and Pacific States. 
BouGAiNViLL^A, Southern and Pacific States. 
Begonias, Pacific States. 
Plumbago Capensis, Southern and Pacific States. 

l/ow- Growing Climbers. 

Large Flowered Clematis. 
Japanese Evergreen Honeysuckle. 

Evergreen Ground-Covering Plants. 

Periwinkle (Vinca Minor), Northern States. 
Periwinkle (Vinca Major), Northern and Pacific States. 
Wild Strawberry, Pacific States — in shade. 
MESEMBRYANTHEMum, Pacific States — in sun. 

Deciduous Ground- Covering Plants. 

Lily-OF-The-VallEy, all sections — in shade. 
Moneywort, all sections — in shade. 
Sedum, all sections — in sun. 

Herbs. 

Ascension Lily (Lilium Candidum), all sections. 

Tiger Lily, all sections. 

Day Lily, all sections. 

Peony, all sections. 

Larkspur, all sections. 

Phlox, all sections. 

Chrysanthemum, all sections. 

Japan Anemone, all sections. 



[12] 




Unimproved. 



Beautify the School virounds. 

The following is an extract from an article which 
appeared in The Youth's Companion Aprils, 1900: 

Is it, then, unreasonable to urge that the rural school grounds 
be made more attractive by the planting of trees and shrubs ? With 
little expense the bare ground about the building can be converted 
into a place of beauty. The pupils themselves, with the aid of 
teachers and friends, can do it. Is it not a vpork well worth under- 
taking? The Youth's Companion believes that it is. Moreover, it 
believes that the growth of the imagination and the artistic nature 
will result ; that the finer sense will be developed and the character 
of those who do the w'ork will be strengthened ; that a love of the 
beautiful will be imparted, which will last through life, and manifest 
itself in the homes which these pupils shall build in future years. 

The work of adorning the grounds of rural schoolhouses is one 
which will exercise an important and lasting influence for the good 
of the national life. It is the purpose of The Youth's Companion 
to aid in creating a national sentiment which shall eventually 
result in the beautifying of the grounds of the rural schools of the 
United States. 




Improved. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 








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